Borrowed Time

First things first. After I wrote this post on competing electoral maps and how Cook seemed to be a little bit friendly towards McCain, they updated. They had McCain leading 240-217 EVs. Now they have Obama ahead a whopping 240-174 EVs. Now all three maps are similar and correspond fairly well with others like www.fivethirtyeight.com.

Now, lately I've been wondering how big of a Democratic majority could actually be built in the House. Obviously, using partisan voting indexes (national average versus district voting average) is not the best measurement, especially because local politics and ideologies do not often mirror the national parties, but I was wondering how many seats the Republicans were still holding on to despite Democratic advantages and vice versa. The results were pretty lopsided.

At this point, after the 2006 elections, the only existing Republican reps from Democratic districts are far and few between. The most disparate R representing D guys were Mike Castle (DE-AL, D+7), Chris Shays (CT-4, D+5), and Mark Kirk (IL-10, D+4). On the other hand, take a look at this list of Democrats in "Republican" districts. Considering almost all experts expect us to pick up even more seats in the house, I don't think there is a better image for just how far the Republican Party has lost its way. I guess this is what happens when voters realize they shouldn't elect people to the government who think the government is the enemy and seek to undermine and destroy it, or "drown it in the bathtub."

Chet Edwards - R+18 (this means that if the country voted 51% for Bush in 2004, his district voted 69% for Bush.)
Jim Matheson - R+17
Gene Taylor - R+16
Nick Lampson - R+15
Earl Pomeroy - R+13
Ike Skelton - R+11
Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin - R+10
Travis Childers - R+10
Brad Ellsworth - R+9
Chris Carney - R+8
Jim Marshall - R+8
Nancy Boyda - R+7
Baron Hill - R+7
Don Cayazoux - R+7
Ben Chandler - R+7
Heath Shuler - R+7
Rick Boucher - R+7
Tim Holden - R+7
John Spratt - R+6
Zach Space - R+6
John Salazar - R+6
Collin Peterson - R+6
Melissa Bean - R+5
Charlie Melancon - R+5
Bill Foster - R+5

So we have way over 25 Democratic Representatives in pretty solid Republican Territory.

I know they (at least the "Blue Dog Democrats") aren't the best followers as a bunch, and as a social liberal, some of their votes offend me, but I'm glad they did what they needed to so that when we elect President Obama, he will have a working majority. They may obstruct some of what he wants to do, but they're still better than having Republicans in those seats.

I don't blame the blogs for keeping the pressure on all these guys to be more liberal (in fact it's a very necessary thing and I applaud them for it), but I do get upset when the bigger emphasis is on attacking one's own instead of the opposition. This is the same reason just about everyone in the Democratic party hates Joe Lieberman now, just from the other side...

At the end of the day, I'll take a Chet Edwards over a Mike Castle because his affiliation keeps Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in power, not John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.